Training the Heavens

Chapter 337 The Struggle between the Old and the New
Before Chen Jiageng could select the principal and teachers, news came from the capital that Cai Heqing had resigned from the post of Minister of Education. He was really unwilling to cooperate with Yuan Shikai. A Zhang continued to work in the Ministry of Education. During this period, he was obsessed with epigraphy and spent all day studying bronze inscriptions and oracle bone inscriptions.

Since Cai Heqing took office, the government has appointed more than 20 ministers of education in the past ten years, including five times when other officials served as ministers concurrently or as acting ministers, two times when they were appointed but did not actually take office, and as many as 5 times when they served for no more than six months.

Such frequent and chaotic appointments show how weak the government's control and guidance over education is. However, this also has its advantages. Because there is no one to manage it, the environment for educational development is relatively relaxed. A large number of overseas students have returned to China to run education, bringing with them educational concepts and models from Japan, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. Domestic education reform and development has gradually become a trend.

Running a school became a more popular choice at that time. There were many people like Chen Jiageng who raised money to run a school on their own. On the contrary, Yuan Shikai was only interested in seizing power and was reluctant to spend any money on education. This led to the fact that in the first year of the Republic of China, there was only one national university, Peking University, and Yuan Shikai was always talking about abolishing it.

Even as late as 1921, there were only six national universities in the country: Peking University, Southeast University, Beiyang University, Shanxi University, Jiaotong University, and Shanghai University of Commerce.

On the contrary, the idea of ​​running schools at the local level was more positive than that of the Beiyang government, and provincial universities continued to recruit students. Perhaps this was inseparable from the current local separatist situation. To maintain a separatist position, one must have talents, and the best way to cultivate talents was to run schools.

The provinces mainly reorganized the old schools into new ones. For example, Zhejiang University was founded on the basis of the Qiushi School. It was renamed "Zhejiang University Hall", "Zhejiang Higher School" successively, and was renamed "Zhejiang Higher School" this year.

Next are private schools. Aurora University is naturally the best among this type of universities. In addition, Hu Dunfu and others founded Datong College this year. This school is not in Shanxi, but in Shanghai.

The name Datong is not a place name, but is taken from the meaning of "The world belongs to the public, this is Datong" in "The Book of Rites: Li Yun". They followed the example of Aurora University in adopting the credit system, mainly developing science and engineering, and also introduced many teachers from Aurora University when the school was founded.

Throughout the Republic of China period, private universities surpassed national universities in both quantity and quality. These schools trained a large number of talents for China, but unfortunately they were still far from meeting the needs of the entire country.

Finally, there is another type of school, which is colleges and universities built with church or foreign funds, such as St. John's University and Shanghai University founded by the United States in Shanghai a few years ago, Jinling University founded by the United States in Jinling, Jinling Women's University which is under construction, West China Union University jointly founded by the United States, Britain and Canada, etc.

If it weren't for Zhang Xingjiu's insistence, Aurora University might have become such a school. This type of school has objectively trained a lot of talents for China, but it is influenced by the church and the funding country. It is better in peacetime, but if a conflict occurs between the two countries, it will be troublesome.

Most of these schools adopt an independent enrollment model, which is relatively relaxed. For example, Mr. Luo Jialun, the drafter of the May Fourth Manifesto, applied for the liberal arts department of Peking University in 1917. Hu Shi gave him full marks for his composition paper, even though his math score was 0. However, President Cai Yuanpei overruled all objections and made an exception to admit Mr. Luo Jialun.

Qian Zhongshu, Zhang Yunhe, Wu Han, Ji Xianlin and others also scored extremely low in mathematics, but were admitted because of their excellent performance in other subjects.

The most amazing person among those who were admitted by special admission was Qian Weichang. Luo Jialun, Qian Zhongshu, Ji Xianlin and others were not good at mathematics, but they continued to study liberal arts after admission, which did not have much impact on them.

Qian Weichang was similar to them. In the entrance examination, he scored full marks in Chinese and history, but his scores in mathematics, physics and chemistry were all in single digits. However, he did not follow Tsinghua's requirements to enter the history department. Instead, he learned from his mistakes and transferred directly to the physics department. Thus, the father of Chinese mechanics was born.

However, not all newly established universities were progressive. Conservatives, often dismissed as irrelevant, refused to resign and banded together to form their own organizations and universities. The most famous of these was the Confucian Society. When Cai Heqing was Minister of Education, he decisively abolished the Confucius Ding Festival, the grand ceremony held annually in the second and eighth lunar months.

Unfortunately, just after he resigned, Yuan Shikai resumed the sacrifices. The old and young people immediately got together and founded the Confucian Church, trying to maintain the stability and continuation of the feudal order by reviving Confucian culture.

This was destined to be a wishful thinking. During Zhang Xun's restoration, they were briefly active on the political stage, but quickly faded into silence with the failure of the restoration.

But at present, the Confucian Church has considerable influence. It has Yuan Shikai above it, conservative officials in the middle, and local forces such as landlords and old literati below it. It can be said to be very prominent at the time.

Not only did they establish their own Confucian University, they also stirred up trouble everywhere and caused problems for new-style schools. Even Aurora University was harassed.

On a larger scale, they petitioned to add scripture reading courses to primary and secondary schools. This was undoubtedly a historical regression and aroused strong opposition from schools across the country. However, Yuan Shikai and others still wanted to use the power of the Confucian Church, so they pushed it through.

Then they began to use the name of upholding Confucianism as a pretext to carry out supervision in various schools. At first, it was only primary and secondary schools, but gradually even universities were often harassed by them. The teachers and students of Aurora University were also annoyed by them.

At this time, the true face of these corrupt guys in the Confucian Church was revealed. Firstly, they bullied the weak and feared the strong. They harassed ordinary private universities, and never dared to enter those church colleges and foreign-funded schools with solid foundations.

Secondly, he was greedy and would find a lot of faults every time he came. When the school gave him silver dollars, he would pretend not to see them. If the school refused to give them silver dollars, he would write a letter demanding severe punishment.

After giving away the silver dollar, Zhang Xingjiu said angrily, "How can such a bug make China prosperous and strong?"

Fortunately, their arrogance did not last long. Just a few years later, Yuan Shikai died, and the arrogance of the Confucian Church suffered a great blow.

The following year, Zhang Xun led his troops into the capital in the name of mediating the "dispute between the government and the parliament" and tried to restore Puyi. The Confucian Church began to shake again. However, after only ten days, Zhang Xun was driven out of the capital by Duan Qirui. Now the Confucian Church was completely silenced and could no longer shake.

At this time, Cai Heqing was serving as the president of Peking University. After a few months in office, he felt that the faculty of Peking University was really weak, so he began to recruit talents, and Zhang Xingjiu was also on the invitation list.

(End of this chapter)